Champua: With paddy harvesting season coming closer, people of Champua in Keonjhar district were panicked due to continued elephant menace. After evening, elephant menace continued to cause mayhem in the area while efforts of the forest department have become ineffective.
Locals alleged that solar fencing around forests has collapsed for lack of maintenance. The trenches dug out by the department to prevent intrusion of animals have caved in at places.
Reports said, even some herds from Jharkhand have been unleashing a reign of terror near forest areas and damaging crops.
Locals lamented that they have to suffer heavy losses and live in fear at night.
“The forest department has completely failed to contain the elephant menace. The existing trenches are not working as they were choked with earth. Solar fencing has been damaged in almost all areas,” they pointed out.
The animals have been causing damage to paddy at Rajia, Patala, Kainta, Satahalia, Mirigisingha, Adhangapal, Godhuli, Tuntuna and Katulikana. A man-elephant conflict has been raging in the area, it is said.
As the area is the regular hunting ground of elephants, locals had demanded solar fencing and trenches.
In the view of their demand, the forest department spent lakhs of rupees by setting up a 2-km solar fencing from Patala Nursery to Patala village in 2012-13 and another 7-km long fencing from Rajia Market to Kainta in 2013-14.
For a few years, the preventive system worked well and animals did not stray into the area.
Over the years, the solar fencing was not maintained while trenches collapsed. As crops in large tracts of farmland were destroyed by the pachyderms, affected people have been thronging the offices of the forest range on a daily basis with complaints and they have sought immediate assessment of the damage and compensation.
Forest officials said that movements of animals are being tracked while elephant squads comprising local youths have been formed to keep off the animals from the villages.
They said reports of crop damage are being forwarded to the government for compensation.